If you use Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, it’s likely you pay for it
via an annual or monthly subscription called Microsoft 365.
Around the end of 2024, the price of Microsoft 365 increased:
- Personal: from £59 to £84 per year
- Family: from £79 to £104 per year
The company reasons that they have added new artificial intelligence (AI)
features, including an AI-powered graphics app called Microsoft
Designer.
Act now to avoid it
Microsoft has quietly made available the option for existing subscribers to
switch to ‘Classic’ subscriptions that exclude these additions and retain
the old prices:
- Visit the Microsoft
account: Subscriptions page.
- To the right of the heading for your Microsoft 365 subscription, click
the blue ‘Manage’ link.
- Find the option to cancel the subscription, and click it.
- Instead of cancelling, select the option to switch to the Classic
plan. At the time of writing, it looks like this:
When I tested this, Microsoft wanted to re-authenticate the stored payment
card. So, have your mobile phone or card reader ready in case your bank
requires this — even though no payment will be taken until your normal
renewal date.
Microsoft says that the option to switch to a Classic plan will be
available for a limited time. It also remains to be seen whether the
Classic plans will themselves see a price increase at some point: the
current prices haven’t changed for at least a decade, so a small rise in
line with inflation would arguably be reasonable.